Brief History of the Project

Europeana, the pan-European digital library, enables people to explore the digital resources of Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. Unfortunately, the references available today to Europeana for the cross border area of Greece and Albania are very limited and this can be proved by a simple use of search terms like Konitsa, Ioannina, Epirus, Gjirokaster, Korca, etc. Despite numerous projects that has been implemented in Epirus, the majority of the digital collections are not connected to Europeana and to the world. Albania, from the other side, is not yet participating actively to Europeana and European initiatives for digitalization of its valuable heritage.

University of Ioannina in cooperation with the Municipality of Gjirokastra and the public library of Konitsa, identifying the representation of the cross border region, will cooperate in order to tackle this important cultural preservation issue.

The cross border area of Greece and Albania was and still remains an area rich of cultural diversity sustained across centuries. The most important aspects of the area’s cultural heritage are recorded in old books, articles and artifacts available in public, municipal or private libraries.

Balkaneana will digitize valuable content from the public library of Konitsa, the municipal library of Gjirokastra and the overall cross border region, will modernize the facilities and the service model of both libraries through novel technologies and paradigms and will create added value for the growth of the two participating regions using as disseminating platform the Europeana portal